I did something I hadn't done since the '70s.

I made granola!


(Enlarge.)

Have I gone crunchy? No. I just bought a big bag of oatmeal in the rolled oats form, I didn't like it anywhere near as much as I like the steel cut oats, and I didn't want to have to eat it or throw it away.

At the October Water Café...

... shimmer...



... ripple...

Iconic Althouse...

... strikes again.

George Bush, in a kiss at the moment of victory.

The Rangers have finally won a World Series game.

"If your last joint was experienced while coughing along to a Bob Dylan album in the '70s, Ramsay's offerings will seem incredibly far out. I mean, incredibly."

I haven't been in the presence of marijuana since The Kinks did the Felt Forum, so I keep up with the horticultural advances by reading stuff like this:

Many Americans of a certain age will remember that in the 1970s, seedy homegrown pot was reviled for its raw, throat-burning quality. Now dope-smoking locavores steer clear of cheap, low- and mid-grade weed in favor of organically grown boutique strains. They speak of "presentation" and varieties so agreeably complex that "you inhale one flavor and exhale another." Just as in the vineyards of the Napa Valley a few miles to the north, complexities come from the soil, from the fruits of labor, from careful breeding. Suddenly, pot has terroir....

Terroir.

[Ed Rosenthal, a horticultural instructor at Oaksterdam University] says the cannabis world is now seeing a fourth breeding wave whose intent is to produce plants that are "tweaked to produce connoisseur highs."

At Harborside, Ramsay hands me a list of all of the clones he has received in recent months. The list runs to 222, and includes such choice varieties as Casey Jones...  a sativa-rich hybrid that is "up, trippy"; Blue Cheese, indica-dominant and "highly euphoric" but "very functional"; and the sativa-heavy Purps, "giggly, blissful."...

Experts such as Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, say the high potency has transformed marijuana for many users into a drug that can induce psychosis and paranoia and increase addiction....

Does this transformation of marijuana make you think more highly of legalization — now that you can be a connoisseur? Or are you worried, because you don't know what it is anymore?

"Peace Train" ... "Crazy Train" ... "Love Train."

At the Rally to Restore Sanity — or, I should say, on the Rally to Restore Sanity, because I'm watching C-SPAN — it was great to see Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) singing his great old song "Peace Train." It was also amusing to have Ozzy Osbourne barge in with "Crazy Train" and okay for the O'Jays to resolve matters with "Love Train."

From my TV perspective, it looked like a huge crowd on the Mall. It was overwhelming white. And — I'm not lying — I wrote "overwhelmingly" before I remembered that "overwhelmingly white" had become a hilariously common way to refer to crowds drawn to conservative rallies.

The crowd also looked pretty young and disproportionately male. Because it's comedy?

UPDATE: Ed Morissey has video of the Cat Stevens performance and a good summary of the controversy — which also comes up in the comments to my post — about presenting Stevens as an emissary of peace when he spoke with some degree of approval of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.

UPDATE 2: Tobin Harshaw collects opinion about the larger event.

The new Miss World is a United Statesian.

Alexandria Mills.

What's her favorite book? "'Guess how much I love you,'my mom used to read it with me." Don't laugh. I'll bet most of the people you know, if they were being honest, would name a children's book as their favorite book.

Tell us a little something about your Country?

The USA is a melting pot for all cultures. My home town is famous for the Kentucky Derby Horse Race.

Yeah, the USA, la la la... let me tell you about Louisville! Louisville, Kentucky:

"... Not London. Not even New York. This is a weird place. You're lucky that mental defective at the motel didn't jerk a pistol out of the cash register and blow a big hole in you.... Just pretend you're visiting a huge outdoor loony bin... If the inmates get out of control we'll soak them down with Mace."

That reminds me. The Rally to Restore Sanity is happening today. Are you there? Are you watching it on C-SPAN? Sanity. Are you up for sanity today? I've got the sanity rally recording on the DVR and I'm going to scroll through it — I say "scroll through" these days, not "fast-forward" — later. Meanwhile, remember when the smart reaction to politics was insanity, back when we read Hunter S. Thompson essays?

A radio news bulletin says the National Guard is massacring students at Kent State and Nixon is still bombing Cambodia. The journalist is driving, ignoring his passenger who is now nearly naked after taking off most of his clothing, which he holds out the window, trying to wind-wash the Mace out of it. His eyes are bright red and his face and chest are soaked with beer he's been using to rinse the awful chemical off his flesh. The front of his woolen trousers is soaked with vomit; his body is racked with fits of coughing and wild chocking sobs. The journalist rams the big car through traffic and into a spot in front of the terminal, then he reaches over to open the door on the passenger's side and shoves the Englishman out, snarling: "Bug off, you worthless [censored]! You twisted pigfucker! [Crazed laughter.] If I weren't sick I'd kick your ass all the way to Bowling Green--you scumsucking foreign geek. Mace is too good for you...We can do without your kind in Kentucky."

"My girls would wear Chanel, maybe a little black dress... They were very elegant."

"A lot of guys who stay at the hotels go down to the bar and they'll have a few drinks with a pretty girl. At some point, she hits him with a price. It's an impulse buy."

The business model that is prostitution at luxury hotels.

As for Charlie Sheen:

Insiders were skeptical Sheen "stiffed" Anderson for $12,000. "The first thing they do is take an imprint of the credit card," one pro said.

What? They walk around with little credit card machines? "No, they're too bulky," the woman said. "The girls just roll their lipstick over the carbon paper to get an imprint."

Lipstick! Carbon paper! Come on. If they're wearing Chanel, you'd think they'd have one of these things:



It's fun watching that video about an iPhone Square and thinking about prostitutes using it. It's so everything-but-prostitutes.

About those packages — that "credible terrorist threat" — with "all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda" — coming just before Election Day.

It's the big story. I haven't written about it yet. I didn't know what to say as the story was unfolding yesterday. I had the thought — and I immediately censored myself — what does this have to do with Election Day? I cut myself off from that line of thinking because, of course, the war on terrorism transcends the petty vicissitudes of partisan politics. I readjusted my consciousness to suit an image of myself as a decent person.

Last night, I was listening to the podcast of the day's Rush Limbaugh show, in which he was seeing the news in real time and reacting out loud. He started where I did: the timing so close to the election. But he didn't censor himself. And this is what I love about Rush. He keeps going, expressing those thoughts you might get to yourself if you let your mind run free:

No matter how you look at these packages-on-the-airplane stories, it's either done by terrorists as a dry run or all of this is being hyped by our government.  If it's the terrorists, then who are they trying to help right before the election?  What are they trying to affect here?  And if it's the government hyping it, then it's clear the administration thinks that this will help them, that this will help Democrats.  

I mean, this is being the done the weekend before the election.  Who would Al-Qaeda being trying to help here?  Clearly they're imposing themselves on our election.  If it's the government hyping it, then it is clear the administration thinks this will help them.  Right?  One way or another, this is being hyped real big.  All of the cable nets have gone wall-to-wall with this.  Somebody is trying to say something here, and somebody is trying to affect the outcome of something.  

This is thrilling radio, people. Completely unplanned. We get to watch — hear — the gears turn. This is bold thinking out loud, and he doesn't know where he's going.

The question is: Who's trying to help who?  If the terrorists are doing this, are they trying to stop the Republican progress or guarantee it?  If it's the administration, then they must think that this ultimately would help them. 

He's using the classic "who benefits?" approach to reasoning. Why would it help the administration? Or, as Rush says, why would they think it would help them? I'd say that the 2010 elections have been focused on the economy and domestic policy. If we refocus on foreign threats, that at least keeps us from looking at what's hurting the Democrats the most. Even if generally, people think the GOP is stronger on national security, if we suddenly feel very threatened, the reaction would be to unite behind the President, whoever he is, and to want to protect him from any weakening forces, like, perhaps, a hostile Congress.

If the threat of terrorism is present in our minds, then we place a much higher value on continuity and stability. Our hostility to things as they are suddenly flip,s and we love what we have and become vigilant lest anyone tear it away from us. Let's coalesce behind our President and help. I know that's what I felt on 9/11. I had never supported President Bush before that day, but then all I wanted was for him to do well, and I couldn't tolerate the carping and the criticism that made his work more difficult than it already was.

The rest of Rush...

Why I won't read "Why We Published the Christine O'Donnell Story."

This link goes to the Memeorandum collection of links to the above-titled item in Gawker. They got nothing but outrage for the story they published, which I glanced at but refused to read and would not link to. My refusal to read it was reflexive, the way I'd immediately close the bathroom door if I opened it and found someone in there. Gawker got a lot of traffic for its paid-for, anonymous story about not having sex with Christine O'Donnell, and they're out to get more traffic explaining why they published it. Gawker has long been traffic-grabbing, which isn't inherently wrong, but it exposes you to temptations, and you have to decide where you want to draw your lines. Gawker has decided, and I'd say, the best response is to deny them the traffic they live for. Don't go there. It may not discipline them back into decency. They'll probably get more traffic as they become more and more notorious for outrageous invasions of privacy. But you don't have to add to that traffic. Don't be a chump and go look just because everyone else seems to be looking.

“Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsburg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy’s mind.”

That's actually the most embarrassing sentence in Larry Tribe's letter to Obama about who to nominate to the Supreme Court.

I love the use of the noun "purchase," meaning, not something you buy, but "A means of increasing power or influence" or "An advantage that is used in exerting one's power." That's the 5th definition of the noun in the 3d edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. Here are some other, related definitions:

2. A grip applied manually or mechanically to move something or prevent it from slipping.

3. A device, such as a tackle or lever, used to obtain mechanical advantage.

4. A position, as of a lever or one's feet, affording a means to move or secure a weight.

You get the idea of the image Tribe had of Kennedy's brain? If you read the whole letter — PDF — you'll see that Tribe thought Justice Souter had "purchase," and he was worried that without Souter, Kennedy would roll toward the "Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomos wing of the Court." He thought Elena Kagan — and not Sonia Sotomayor — would operate — as a tackle or lever? — to move "Tony Kennedy's mind."

Kagan, Tribe said, had a way of "gently but firmly persuading a bunch of prima donnas to see things her way in case after case." Of course, he was referring to the prima donna professors at Harvard Law School, and mainly talking about new faculty appointments, which is quite different from persuading Supreme Court Justices about interpretations of law. It's one thing to build a law school community where professors can spout diverse ideologies and still feel like it's a happy, functioning institution. It's quite another to amass votes for a legal proposition that produces an outcome in a case and binds all the courts in the United States.

And if the target of a light touch knows that the most powerful man in the world has selected that approach to prying his brain into a particular political direction, that target ought to become highly vigilant and not get played.

... I think it's clear that a Justice Kagan would be a much more formidable match for Justice Scalia than Justice Breyer has been... in the kinds of public settings in which it has been all to easy for Scalia to make his rigid and unrealistic formalism seem synonymous with the rule of law and to make Breyer's pragmatism seem mushy and unconstrained by comparison.

Tribe says Kagan will be "simultaneously progressive yet principled, pragmatic and yet constrained." That sounds like pragmatism. How does it not "seem mushy" like Breyer's pragmatism? Because it's asserted to be "constrained," while Breyer's pragmatism "seem[s]... unconstrained"? Because it's progressive — steadily aimed in one direction and not more subtly varied?

I'm sure Justice Kennedy doesn't need to be tipped off to this political scheme to clamber over the crusty crags of the convolutions of his brain. But Tribe's letter is amusing reading nonetheless.

"High-Speed Rail Goes Off the Tracks in Wisconsin."

We cheered out loud over that headline.

Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor, has denounced the train as a Big Government boondoggle, and has vowed to send the money [$810 million] back to Washington if he's elected. He has even launched a website, www.notrain.com, attacking Obama and his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, for supporting the new line. Walker and Barrett don't agree on much, but they agree that high-speed rail is a defining issue in their campaign.

"Just hours before the final deadline, more than 100 Alaskans came out Thursday to file as write-in candidates..."

"... in an effort to thwart Sen. Lisa Murkowski's bid to retain her Senate seat."

Paul Krugman says "This is going to be terrible."

"In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness."

He concludes: "So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Hey, wait, I thought it was Democrats who liked to say Republicans are trying to scare us. Now, it's just Republicans are scary, and we hope you believe that they're scary to everyone, and not just to Democrats.

Angle and Reid.

"Angle is winning the all-important independent voters by double digits, 55 percent to 38 percent, as Nevadans not aligned with either major political party swing her way as they settle on a choice."

When "Project Runway" went from Bravo to Lifetime...

... this was all so predictable. Spoilers after the break and — presumably soon — in the comments.